The IC3 Blue Train - A little journal about design, marketing, sales and other matters

How far are we from being saturated by ‘green noise’? Close. But the solution is simple: focus on conserving energy.

I think it is time for ‘greens’ of all types to dramatically revise their communications strategies and to focus on what really matters. An increasing number of publications, websites and blogs about environmental topics mention a rising phenomenon described as green noise, green backlash, green fatigue and so on.

People are getting fed up with the hubbub of confusing and often conflicting messages on a wide variety of eco-subjects including climate change, global warming, pollution, obesity, world trade and many others. We are bombarded with slogans such as ‘save the planet’ – ‘save the whales’ – ‘protect the Amazon forest’ – ‘use bio fuels’ – ‘eat five vegetables a day and omega 3 rich fish twice a week’ – ‘ban tuna fishing’ – ‘give preference to local produce’ – etc.

To add to the chaos, corporations are painting themselves green, believing that environmentalism sells. Count the number of times you see adjectives like ‘eco-friendly’ – ‘ renewable’ – ‘sustainable’ – ‘reusable’ – ‘natural’ – ‘organic’ - and even ‘clean’ in their ads, brochures and websites.

To me, the top prize for cynicism has to go to BP with their “beyond petroleum” tagline and with their claim to deserve the ‘green’ label because they offer ‘fair trade’ coffee in their petrol stations. What a cheek for a company that pumps, every day, 3.8 million barrels of oil from the world reserves and reports indecent profits quarter after quarter (no, Mum, I’ve not become a communist; I just think there should be a limit to greed).

The result of all this nonsense is that consumers listen less and less to green messages. A survey quoted by The Institute of Public Affairs Australia found that in 2007, 20% fewer US consumers deliberately bought an environmentally friendly product than in 2006, when only 21% of all surveyed people said that environmental considerations had led them to choose one product over another. In other words, 16% cared about buying green in 2007 and this number could be about 12% right now. Consumers seem to be figuring out that most eco-friendly claims are just a lot of marketing bluster.

So, instead of harassing citizen about their carbon footprint (yet another management consultants’ baloney – as if we, mere humans, could influence our planet’s climate in perceptible ways), governments should simply help people become aware of how much energy they consume and measure everything in kWh to enable straight comparisons. Then, one single slogan suffices: CONSERVE ENERGY. This is what really matters.

If we all become better at using less energy – by heating (or cooling) to a lesser degree our houses and, especially, public buildings; by reducing our usage of automobiles, especially 4WD monsters in metropolitan areas; by buying low consumption appliances; and by using telecommunications technologies instead of flying across the world to attend unproductive meetings – we will [1] decrease the pollution, [2] reduce the global warming (in our modest proportions) and [3] save dosh, bucks, quids, dineros … in short, money; our own and our country’s. Yes, Sir. And that’s concrete. You catch people’s attention through their wallet, and abandon fuzzy theories and idiotic demagogy.

Two simple words: CONSERVE ENERGY. Ain’t that simpler?